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The Knight Foundation issued an open call for ideas on how to get more Americans involved in their communities so that they will have a voice in local, state and national issues. I answered the call and submitted an idea to increase Millennials’ interest in elections, boost voter turnout and jump-start civic participation.

Some background. Americans between the ages of 18 and 35 have the lowest turnout. In Philadelphia, Millennials are not targeted for voter outreach because they are “inactive” (meaning they have not voted in five years or are not registered to vote).

With the cutback in civic education in the schools and no targeted outreach, it’s not surprising that Millennials are not showing up on Election Day. In 2014, turnout for Pennsylvania’s competitive gubernatorial race was 36 percent. That was Philadelphia’s lowest citywide turnout in a midterm election since 1998. By one estimate, youth turnout was 20 percent, the worst turnout in a midterm election since 1940.

The takeaway of the 2008 and 2012 elections is that young people will turn out if they are the target of voter education initiatives. But the dirty little secret about voting is that incumbents have a vested interest in keeping the electorate small. Philly’s political machine spends few, if any, resources encouraging new voters to get involved. The lack of information and the city’s archaic ward system are barriers to participation.

Yo! Philly Votes will bridge the information gap. Our mobile app will provide a calendar of nonpartisan candidate and policy forums, and an Election Day incident reporting tool. The flattening of newsrooms means there are fewer journalists to report on what’s happening at polling places. So we will crowdsource election protection.

No, I wasn’t crying over a lost love. With no notice to the Strawberry Mansion community, Pennrose, a multifamily development and residential property management company, took the wrecking ball to the “Tribute to John Coltrane” mural at Diamond and 32nd Streets.

My understanding is that they’re supposed to be replacing that mural. How they’re supposed to do it, I don’t know. I’m just waiting to see.

I’m not one to wait. On their “About Us” page, Pennrose says “(f)rom new construction to historic preservation, we maximize value and provide outstanding quality. I will contact the company to find out what they did to preserve the mural. What is their plan to replace a mural that was valued by Strawberry Mansion residents and the Philadelphia jazz community?

One of the goals of All That Philly Jazz is to transform vacant spaces into vibrant places. Pennrose has transformed a vibrant space into what looks like a freshly dug grave.

In my presentation at Fast Forward Philly’s DesignPhiladelphia event, I said what’s next for Philly is to move beyond Ben Franklin’s Philadelphia to John Coltrane’s Philadelphia. “John Coltrane” is a metaphor for an innovative city where people want to live, visit, invest and long-time residents have more pride.

The destruction of the Coltrane mural undermines neighborhood pride, as well as Strawberry Mansion residents’ sense of ownership of their community.

For most folks, Philadelphia’s jazz heritage begins and ends with John Coltrane. To be sure, Coltrane is a giant part of the story. But as James G. Spady wrote in “Lost Jazz Shrines”:

Conversations with pioneers of the jazz community in Philadelphia reveal the city’s illustrious yet largely undocumented jazz history.

We’re working on an app for that. All That Philly Jazz is mapping Philly’s jazz heritage from bebop to hip-hop.

From Dizzy Gillespie at the Downbeat to The Roots mural on South Street, we are breathing life into legendary jazz spots like Union Local 274 (Clef Club), Pep’s, Showboat, Aqua Lounge, Watts Zanzibar, Café Holiday, Geno’s Empty Foxhole and the Red Rooster.

Sadly, few physical assets remain. Jazz spots fell victim to race riots and urban renewal. As a result, the history largely resides in the memories of those who were there. So to preserve the legacy for future generations, All That Philly Jazz is crowdsourced. As we build out the interactive map, we have created a placeholder website where community members and folks anywhere in the world can share their stories, photos and videos of the jazz scene back in the day.

While I love jazz, I live for the blues. I don’t remember a time in my life when the blues didn’t touch me to my core.

Growing up in Brooklyn, Jimmy McGriff’s Hammond B-3 organ fueled my imagination. So it was awesome to discover McGriff perfected his craft in organ joints in West Philly.

The blues is the prism through which I view the world. The musical genre shaped my self-image and my expectations about male-female relationships. It captured my joy. When that joy turned to pain, “I cried like a baby.” But guess what? “Everything is really all right.”

The blues is more than a feeling. It’s a state of mind. Since we were “brought over on a ship,” blues has been our sanctuary.

This is music with humble beginnings, roots in slavery and segregation, a society that rarely treated black Americans with the dignity and respect that they deserved. The blues bore witness to these hard times. And like so many of the men and women who sang them, the blues refused to be limited by the circumstances of their birth.

The music migrated north—from Mississippi Delta to Memphis to my hometown in Chicago. It helped lay the foundation for rock and roll and R&B and hip-hop. It inspired artists and audiences around the world. And as tonight’s performers will demonstrate, the blues continue to draw a crowd. Because this music speaks to something universal. No one goes through life without both joy and pain, triumph and sorrow. The blues gets all of that, sometimes with just one lyric or one note.

Blacks learned how to sing the blues rather than just giving up on life. A guy’s wife walks out on him with his best friend. And he’s crushed. So what does he say? Instead of going out and taking a gun and killing he sings a song “I’m going down to the railroad to lay my poor head on the track. I’m going down to the railroad to lay my poor head on the track. And when the locomotive comes I’m gonna pull my fool head back.

I’m not giving up life over this. That life goes on beyond this. Pain is just for a moment. This whole notion about what we’re going through is only a season. And this came to pass, didn’t come to stay. That’s what the blues do. And that’s what the music tradition does.

When black folks were connected to the blues, we had a plan and we worked that plan. The plan took us from the slave master’s house to claiming victory at the White House, where President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The blues is how we got over. This is turn begs the question: What’s not to love?

What’s Going On is a mobile web app that curates information about after-school and summer programs in Philadelphia.

While there are a number of databases that aggregate information about out-of-school-time programs, the information is not current. Parents and students are frustrated in their efforts to find safe, productive activities. The demand for academic enrichment programs will increase in the wake of the “doomsday” budget approved by the Philadelphia School Reform Commission.

In addition to the school budget crisis, Philadelphia’s digital divide is a chasm. Nearly half of Philly households do not have access to the Internet. So, many parents and students will search for safe and productive out-of-school-time activities at the public library or Keyspot public computer center. While Internet access is free, there is a time limit. Philadelphians on the wrong side of the digital divide are not free to sit there as long as it takes to find a program.

What’s Going On is at the intersection of technology, education and civic engagement. Program providers, parents and community members are invited to submit a program. The information is verified before the program is added to Wikidelphia, Philly’s local wiki.

In recognition of our efforts to promote civic engagement, the What’s Going On team has been invited to the White House to participate in the Champions of Change event which will highlight “extraordinary leaders in transformative civic hacking and civic engagement.”

The invitation reads:

On July 23, White House officials will participate in a discussion with these Champions to learn more about extraordinary individuals who are taking innovative approaches to engage citizens and communities in the practice of open government, civic participation, and civic hacking.

As a longtime champion of civic engagement, it’s an honor to be included in the mix.

To get involved with What’s Going On, contact us via email or send us a tweet.

Last weekend was the National Day of Civic Hacking, a two-day event that brought together technologists and subject matter experts “to create tools that make our city better.” I participated in the hackathon organized by TechnicallyPhilly.com and the City of Philadelphia at Drexel’s ExCITe Center.

I worked on a Code for Philly project with Chris Alfano and Jim Connor. We addressed the problem of the lack of a central source for information about after school and summer programs. There are a number of databases that compile information about out-of-school-time (OST) programs, but the information is not current. The demand for such programs will increase in the wake of the “doomsday” school budget recently approved by the School Reform Commission.

There’s no money and in nearly half of Philly households, no Internet access. So many parents and students will try to find out what’s going on at the library or Keyspot public computer center. While Internet access is free, users are not free to sit there as long as it takes to find a suitable program.

So we built a mobile web app that empowers parents and students to quickly access current information about after school and summer programs.

Users are able to search for programs by grade level, season (summer or year-round) and subject. What’s Going On is at the intersection of technology, education and civic engagement. The public is invited to submit a program. We will verify the information before adding the program to our community wiki, Wikidelphia.

An asset map of OST programs in Philadelphia, What’s Going On won first place. The project can serve as a national model for how developers, advocates, parents and community members can collaborate to expand access to programs that promote year-round learning and engagement.